Hamlet – The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised]
Note: Shakespeare’s original text is denoted with quotation marks.
DANIEL
Back to Hamlet, Act Three, Scene Two, the pivotal play-within-a-play scene, in
which Hamlet discovers conclusive evidence that his uncle murdered his father.
[HAMLET enters, pauses, then whips his hands out from behind his back to reveal
sock-puppet players on his hands.]
J/HAMLET
“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, and hold, as ‘twere, the mirror
up to nature. [POLONIUS enters. A puppet theater appears on the set.] Will my
lord hear this piece of work?
D/POLONIUS
Aye, and the king, too, presently.
[Trumpet fanfare. ADAM enters as CLAUDIUS. He is not a nice man.]
A/CLAUDIUS
And now, how does my cousin, Hamlet, and my son?
J/HAMLET
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
A/CLAUDIUS
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet, these words are not mine.”
D/POLONIUS
Take a seat, my lord.
A/CLAUDIUS
[Moves into the audience.] Very well. You! Gimme your seat! The king wishes to
park his royal rump!
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[CLAUDIUS displaces an audience member and sits. JESS disappears behind the
puppet theater.]
D/POLONIUS
My lord, the Royal Theatre of Denmark is proud to present The Murder of
Gonzago.
A/CLAUDIUS
Hey, a puppet show! I love them wacky puppets.
D/POLONIUS
My lord, Act One.
[JESS performs a romantic dumb show: the king puppet and queen puppet
meeting, falling in love, and promptly humping…POLONIUS breaks in.]
D/POLONIUS
Intermission!
J/HAMLET
“How likes my lord the play?
A/CLAUDIUS
The lady doth protest too much, methinks!” [Laughs uproariously. To the person
he’s displaced:] Get it? Get it? [To the rest of the audience:] He doesn’t get it.
D/POLONIUS
My lord, Act Two.
A/CLAUDIUS
Gesundheit. Har har!! I’m on fire.
[The puppet king lies down to sleep. A puppet shark dressed like Claudius appears
and attacks the king! CLAUDIUS rises, storms onstage, rips the puppets off
HAMLET’s hands.]
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D/POLONIUS
“The king rises.
A/CLAUDIUS
Give o’er the play! Lights! Away! [Exits with puppets. The puppet theater
disappears.]
J/HAMLET
I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound!
D/POLONIUS
My lord, the queen would speak with you in her closet.
J/HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother’s…closet.
D/POLONIUS
Behind the arras I’ll covey myself to hear the process. [Hides.]
[Enter HAMLET and ADAM as GERTRUDE, opposite.]
J/HAMLET
Now, Mother, what’s the matter?
A/GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
J/HAMLET
[Drawing his dagger.] Mother, you have my father much offended.
A/GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help! [Exits.]
D/POLONIUS
Help! Help!
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J/HAMLET
How now? A rat!”
[HAMET charges POLONIUS with his dagger, shifting into slow motion. Lights
strobe and we hear the sound effects from the shower scene in Psycho.]
D/POLONIUS
[Slow-mo voice.] Oh no, that will hurt!
[HAMLET stabs POLONIUS in exaggerated slow motion. Polonius exits as he
dies. HAMLET licks his dagger clean and snaps out of slo-mo as the strobe effect
ends.]
J/HAMLET
“Dead for a ducat, dead!
[CLAUDIUS enters.]
A/CLAUDIUS
Now Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
J/HAMLET
At supper.
A/CLAUDIUS
At supper? Where?
J/HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.”
[DANIEL enters as Laertes, huffing and snarling.]
A/CLAUDIUS and J/HAMLET
Oh no, it’s Laertes!
A/CLAUDIUS
Son of Polonius.
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J/HAMLET
Brother to Ophelia!
A/CLAUDIUS
And a snappy dresser!
D/LAERTES
Why, thanks.
“O, thou vile king! Give me my father!
I’ll be revenged for Polonius’s murder.
[JESS screams offstage, imitating Ophelia. CLAUDIUS exits.]
How now, what noise is this?
[ADAM screams offstage as OPHELIA.]
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
[OPHELIA enters with flowers, screaming.]
A/OPHELIA
They bore him barefaced on the bier
With a hey-nonny-nonny, hey nonny,
And in his grave rained many a tear
With a hey-nonny-nonny ha-cha-cha.
Fare you well my dove.”
I’m mad! [She tosses flowers wildly about.] I’m out of my tiny little mind! [To the
audience:] See, this is acting. “Here’s rue for you, and rosemary for
remembrance…[She offers a flower to an audience member] and I would have
given you violets, but they withered all when my father died,” you bastard! [She
yanks the flower back.] I’m starting to feel a little nauseous…[She lurches into the
audience and pretends to vomit on people.]
D/LAERTES
[Attempting to carry on despite the chaos ADAM is causing.] “Hamlet comes
back—”
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ADAM
[Leaping back to the stage.] Daniel, what’s the next scene with Ophelia?
DANIEL
What?
ADAM
What’s the next scene with Ophelia?
DANIEL
There are no more scenes with Ophelia. “Hamlet comes back—”
ADAM
But I’ve got layers now, I’m up for it.
DANIEL
That’s all Shakespeare wrote. “Hamlet comes back—”
ADAM
Well, what happens to her?
DANIEL
She drowns.
ADAM
Oh. [Exits.]
D/LAERTES
“What would I undertake
To show myself my father’s son in deed
More than in words? To—”
[OPHELIA reenters with a cup of water.]
A/OPHELIA
Here I go.
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DANIEL
No, offstage!
A/OPHELIA
[She throws the cup of water in her own face.] Aaaaaaaaauugh! [Dies, bows, exits.]
DANIEL
Ophelia, ladies and gentlemen.
D/LAERTES
[Continuing.] …“To cut his throat in the church.
Ay, and to that end, I’ll anoint my sword
With an unction so mortal that where it draws blood
No cataplasm can save the thing from this compulsion.”
I don’t know what it means either.
[LAERTES exits. HAMLET enters with a skull.]
J/HAMLET
“This skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.”
And then came…[Insert name of latest fad diet, you know, the one with confirmed
deaths.]
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him—
But soft! Here comes the queen.
Couch me awhile, and mark.
[Hides. GERTRUDE and LAERTES enter, bearing the corpse of OPHELIA—a
dummy wrapped in a sheet.]
D/LAERTES
Lay her in the earth; and from her fair
And unpolluted flesh, may violets spring.
A/GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
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D/LAERTES
Hold off the earth awhile,
‘til I have caught her once more in mine arms.
J/HAMLET
What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis?
This is I, Hamlet, the great Dane!
[He spikes the skull of Yorick—it is rubber, and bounces away. He rushes to the
corpse and tries to yank it away from LAERTES. There is a brief tug-of-war.]
A/GERTRUDE
Gentleman! Hamlet! Laertes!
D/LAERTES
The devil take thy soul.
[LAERTES lets go of the corpse as HAMLET pulls, and it bonks GERTRUDE on
the head. GERTRUDE exits, staggering.]
J/HAMLET
I will fight with him until my eyelids no longer wag.
The cat will mew, the dog will have his day.
Give us the foils.
D/LAERTES
Come, one for me.”
[GERTRUDE reenters, hands a foil to each, then, as she exits…]
A/GERTRUDE
Now be careful. Those are sharp.
J/HAMLET
“Come, sir.
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D/LAERTES
Come, my lord.”
[They fence.]
J/HAMLET and D/LAERTES
Clink! Clank! Swish! Poke! Slice! Smack!
[HAMLET scores a hit.]
D/LAERTES
Ouch!
J/HAMLET
“One.
D/LAERTES
No!
J/HAMLET
Judgment?
[ADAM enters. He is ostensibly CLAUDIUS, but is not quite fully dressed in three
different costumes.]
A/CLAUDIUS
A hit, a very palpable hit.”
DANIEL
What are you wearing?
ADAM
Um…layers?
A/CLAUDIUS
[Continuing, back in character.] “Hamlet, here’s to thy health. Drink off this cup.
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J/HAMLET
Nay, set it by awhile, Uncle” Father…Mother…whatever you are.
[They fence. HAMLET runs LAERTES completely through.]
“Another hit. What say you?
D/LAERTES
[Examines the foil running entering his chest and exiting his back.]
A touch. A touch, I do confess.
[GERTRUDE enters with a goblet.]
A/GERTRUDE
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
D/LAERTES
Madam, do not drink.
A/GERTRUDE
I will, my lord. I pray you pardon me.
D/LAERTES
It is the poisoned cup! It is too late.
[GERTRUDE chokes and exits.]
J/HAMLET
Come, for the third, Laertes.”
[They fence, ultimately running each other through simultaneously.]
J/HAMLET and D/LAERTES
Yowch!!
[Both fall. GERTRUDE reenters.]
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J/HAMLET
“How does the queen?
D/LAERTES
She swoons to see thee bleed.
A/GERTRUDE
No, the drink! The drink! I am poisoned. [She vomits on the audience until
HAMLET grabs her and spins her offstage.]
J/HAMLET
O villainy! Treachery! Seek it out!
D/LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet. Here I lie, never to rise again.
I can no more. The king. The king’s to blame.
[CLAUDIUS enters still wearing GERTRUDE’s skirt.]
J/HAMLET
What, the point envenom’d too? Then venom to thy work!
Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, cross-dressing Dane:
Follow my mother! [HAMET stabs CLAUDIUS, who dies.]
D/LAERTES
Forgive me, Hamlet, I am justly killed by mine own treachery. [Dies.]
J/HAMLET
Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee.
[To the audience.] You that look pale, and tremble at this chance
That are but mutes, or audience to this act;
If ever thou did’st hold me in thy hearts
Absent thee from felicity awhile;
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story. The rest is silence.
[He gags, convulses, then dies in a comically balletic pose. Blackout.]
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